History Hunts

THE QUEST FOR ANCIENT TREASURE!

October 19, 2010

That first afternoon yielded a handful of targets, mostly plain buttons, worn out copper coins and lead pieces. In addition to those items, I also popped out a small 16th century hammered Queen Elizabeth I silver coin that had been folded in half and a 17th century copper trade farthing on that day. I learned right away that the more "junk" targets you could find and dig the better chance you had of finding something really good. This would become even more evident as the hunt progressed.

The next morning we woke up bright and early and were in another field right after breakfast. This field as well as every other one we hunted was HUGE. We started hunting and began to find the normal odds and ends. It was getting close to lunch and none of us had found anything really good. My goal was just to stay focused and keep hunting slow and low to the ground, digging as many signals as possible. This paid off!

A half hour before our lunch arrived, I got a small signal close to one end of the field. I was actually walking back to my hunting buddy RG to grab him for lunch. Digging a small plug revealed a small gold, coin-shaped object. Could it be? Videotaping, I got on my knees to get a closer look. I was amazed to see that it was indeed an ancient gold coin!!!! I called my RG over and picked up the coin. It turned out to be an Anglo Saxon coin dating from 620-645AD - simply amazing!

Now for the rest of the week we hunted long and hard on many different fields often going well into the night using our head lamps. We dug hundreds of targets. A few of these were goodies such as medieval and Roman artifacts and coins, but most were the usual flat buttons, lead, copper coins and trash metal. I gotta say this was a great experience. We ate well and detected as long as we could stand it. What more could you ask for?

As for the Anglo Saxon gold coin, here are the details: English minted Saxon Thrymsa gold coin - 'Witmen type' c620 -650 AD - 1.26g, 11.46mm. This type of Saxon coin was originally found in a hoard discovered in 1828. Because of this the British Museum disclaimed the coin and approved my export paperwork. A year later, after all of the proper paperwork had been filed, I was able to bring my little gold Saxon home with me. Needless to say it stayed safely tucked in my front pocket in it's own protective holder. Currently this coin is registered with the Fitzwilliam museum Corpus database in England as EMC 2007.0302. This allows it to become part of a huge medieval artifacts database available to all for future study.

Here it is - fresh out of the ground after a quick rinse from my water bottle.